


whispers would deafen me now

by hanthelibrarian



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Background Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak, Brief mention of other characters - Freeform, Confessions, Eddie Lives, Eddie lost an arm, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, Mike Has Issues, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Requited Unrequited Love, Stan Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanthelibrarian/pseuds/hanthelibrarian
Summary: Mike has always remembered. He’s always remembered what happened to them that summer when they were kids. God, they were only kids and yet, they had to go through the worst the universe had to offer. Mike doesn’t like to indulge in self-pity but every so often, late at night before they all reunited, he’d think to himself, 'I’ve had it worse than they have. They got to leave, they got to forget, and I? I’ve had to remember. Every day I’ve had to remember.'
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	whispers would deafen me now

**Author's Note:**

> i worked really hard on this for a long time. i finally just got the last little bit of inspiration that I needed for the ending. I'm really proud of this fic and I hope you enjoy it.

Mike has always remembered. He’s always remembered what happened to them that summer when they were kids. God, they were only kids and yet, they had to go through the worst the universe had to offer. Mike doesn’t like to indulge in self-pity but every so often, late at night before they all reunited, he’d think to himself, _I’ve had it worse than they have. They got to leave, they got to forget, and I? I’ve had to remember. Every day I’ve had to remember_.

He had kept tabs on all of his friends from Derry. He watched Bev work her way up in the fashion world, watched her walk into the arms of her abusive (now ex-) husband, a man much too like her father. He watched Eddie, the little firecracker who once stood up to his mom shouting, “They’re gazebos, they’re bullshit!”, marry a woman who was just like his mother as he worked in a field that caused him more anxiety than it relieved. He watched Richie, the comedian of the group, do fairly well but he knew, deep down Mike knew, that Richie wasn’t doing as well as he liked to pretend. Ben, he had seen, had moved to the middle of nowhere, working on the latest and greatest architectural wonders but never truly moving on from the girl he had once written a poem about, those January embers always in the back of his mind. Stan had done well for himself, Mike had noticed, and had not only married the love of his life but had also started his own accounting firm, something that, at his age, was quite the feat. 

Mike kept tabs on all of them but the one that he, perhaps obsessively, kept track of was Bill.

Bill Denbrough, the bestselling author whose work has now been adapted into a few movies. Bill Denbrough, the boy who Mike would look at for just a bit too long and a bit too often back in Derry. Bill Denbrough, the one who Mike thought of each time he had tried to start dating before giving it up completely. Before their reunion, he had felt ashamed every time he thought of Bill, every time he bought one of Bill’s books for his own collection. He felt ashamed because, just like when they were kids, his gaze would linger a bit too long on the portrait in the dust jacket. He would too often find himself watching Bill’s interviews, focusing on the lack of stutter with each word Bill said. He would feel ashamed because Bill was married, because sometimes he secretly hoped Pennywise would come back so they could be reunited. Whenever those thoughts came to his mind, however, he would fight against them. They weren’t his own thoughts; they were the thoughts of whatever bullshit had been left over from the trauma they all shared as kids.

When they all reunited, Stan showing up with a terrified Patty who clutched her husband’s hand like he was going to float away, the reason for which they would all find out when Pennywise cornered Stan, a shaving razor in his hand. He flicked it open, then closed, again and again, taunting Stan. “Were you too scared, Stan? Thought that leaving this world would be better than seeing me again? Wanna try again?” Stan’s face had gone slack for a moment before shifting to a more steeled expression. “I was scared but now that I’ve got my friends back, I’ve got a better use for that razor.” He had grabbed it from the clown, shocking everyone, including Pennywise, and, before anyone could say anything, sliced it across the monster’s throat. The Losers watched in shock and pride as Stan stood over Pennywise where he lay on the ground, clutching his throat. Their friend, the one who had been thoughtful enough to buy shower caps for the clubhouse to keep spiders out of their hair, stood above the clown screaming, “You’re just a fucking clown! You’re nothing special!” Soon, they all began shouting at the thing that had scared them all as children, until he was small and fragile enough that Bill could reach into the creature’s chest and pull out its beating heart. They destroyed the creature, which destroyed its lair, laying to rest the plague that had had its hold on Derry for centuries.

Throughout all of this, Pennywise should have been the main focus in Mike’s mind. He should have been thinking constantly of ways to fight the creature, thinking of ways to prepare themselves; instead, nearly all he could think about was how much he wished he could run his hands through his friend’s hair, how much he wanted to feel the burn of Bill’s stubble on his lips. Each time he thought that, he thought about how impossible that was. Once Pennywise was killed, Mike came close to telling Bill how he felt, especially after he saw Ben and Bev get together, after he saw Richie finally show Eddie his carving on the Kissing Bridge. He had actually gone up to Bill to talk to him but just when he was going to do it, Bill got a call from Audra. The softness in his voice when he said “Hi, Auds” killed the little bit of courage that Mike had gathered. He simply smiled and clapped Bill on the shoulder before moving to speak with Stan and Patty.

It’s been months, almost a year, since they killed IT, since Mike had been freed from his self-imposed isolation. He’s finally traveled, something he had thought he would never be able to do. He’s seen Miami, LA, Seattle, hell he’s seen Kansas. He has plans to travel more, see Europe and Asia and South America. He’d go to Antarctica if he could, just to see the edge of the world. His passport is in his left hand and in his right is his phone, TripAdvisor pulled up in his browser. London is his destination and he’s about to book the flight and hotel but he gets a text from Ben.

>have u read bill's new book?

Not yet, no.<

I've been planning on buying it   
but it's constantly sold out here<

>so did he tell u about it at all?

Not really. He said something about channeling  
our experiences in it but that's about it.<

>Oh

What's going on, Ben?<

>nothing!! just uh be prepared?

For what?<

Ben?<

I'm buying the ebook right now<

>don't be mad at him mike

>I shouldn't have said anything

As a librarian, he supports e-books. They are useful, easy to access for road trips, and can be easier for sight-impaired patrons to read because of the ability to zoom in or make the text bigger. As a reader, he hates e-books. He prefers to have a physical copy to make notes in, highlight, feel the turn of the pages, feel the weight of the book. It is only when he has to that he buys an e-book. This, he determines, is one of those times and so he pulls up his e-reading app and purchases William Denbrough’s newest book, _In the Shadow of My Memories_ . He forgets all about booking his trip to London, mind completely focused on the story unfolding before him. It’s their story, the Losers, but changed ever so slightly. It’s therapeutic, in a way, he supposes. Reading about your own experiences from the point of view of someone else. But it’s not really their experiences as Bill has changed quite a lot but there’s still that underlying essence of Loser that only their friends could identify. He finds himself laughing at Bill’s description of the character that would be Eddie: _The man was the personification of anxiety, his blood pressure consistently high as he couldn’t stop his mind from racing, thoughts swirling around diseases and statistics and fear. Did that stop him from cracking jokes, mostly at his friends’ expense? No; if anything, it empowered him. The thing about his anxiety, his overthinking, his obsessions, was that he had to get them out of his mind somehow and, more often than not, that involved insulting his friends, jokingly of course._

As Mike reads on, he notices that the character who would be him, if Bill truly was basing the story and characters off of what they had gone through, off of the Losers, was practically the focus of the story. He finds that more than a bit odd; if Bill had written him as the villain, it would make more sense to him. He was the one who had brought them back, made them relive all of their trauma after having forgotten it so long ago. Instead, he finds that Bill had written him as the hero, the one who had discovered the lair of the elusive child-murderer, the one who had not only come up with the plan to defeat him but had practically single-handedly carried that plan out. The way that Bill portrays him- not him, the character Christopher Jones- is becoming reminiscent of how Mike saw Bill. The hero, the one who saved everyone from their greatest fears. Of course, Bill wouldn’t write himself in that light. His character, Ryan Lindon, was barely a focus of the story, despite being the main character, but he supposes that is natural. Bill is a humble man and it’s clear that Ryan is a self-insert; he wouldn’t want the media to tear him apart for an egotistical portrayal of himself.

He’s at the part where the characters, the Outcasts, have defeated the villain and they turn to each other, embracing as they prepare to leave the lair, leave everything it represents behind. He expects the next paragraph to describe their journey out of the sewers but he’s shocked when he reads about the moment that’s been stuck in his head since the second it happened, although this version is... slightly different:

_Ryan turns in a circle, slowly, his friends all standing around him, embracing each other in a way that exudes relief and the residual vapors of the fear that had consumed them for decades. His eyes glance over each of them. Mara, the artist who had shown him that fear could live in the most beautiful of places but that it couldn’t define them. David, the poet, the one who could turn words into weapons and symbols of fear into symbols of love. Jack, his closest friend, the one who almost didn’t survive this encounter because facing your greatest fears is more terrifying than the fears themselves. Phil and Wyatt, the bickering duo who were now confessing feelings that they had hidden far back in the recesses of their minds, society just not ready for them until now. And Chris. Throughout their encounter with that Gacy-wannabe, Loren Sutter, Ryan’s memories had been returning steadily. He remembered his brother, the morning he went missing, the morning his family gave up. He remembered his friends and all of their adventures. He remembered their first encounter with Sutter, the fear that they all felt at the first nails-on-the-chalkboard screech of his voice. It is at this moment, however, that he finally remembers Chris, truly remembers him. The way that his smile would make Ryan’s heart race, the way that simply a word from Chris would cause his mind to short-circuit. Ryan found himself moving toward his friend, not sure what he was going to do but knowing that, whatever he did, it was going to change who he was forever._

_“Chris,” he breathes, hands reaching up to grip the back of his friend’s head, pulling him close, their foreheads resting against each other. Chris smiles that damn sunrise smile; the nickname for that smile yet another memory that Ryan’s mind released from its trauma-induced prison. Before he can stop himself, Ryan sets aside all of his residual fear, all of his trepidation, and kisses his friend. Time seems to slow, just like in all of those romance novels he refuses to read, and Ryan almost doesn’t notice the stares from the other Outcasts. He begins pulling away after he notices that Chris hasn’t moved but before their lips could part, he is being held closer, wrapped in the arms of his childhood love. They stay like that, kissing softly and ignoring the congratulatory shouts from their friends, echoing off the stone walls, until they hear the roof of the cave start to collapse._ Mike tosses his e-reader across the room, hearing the screen give a sickening _crack_. His breath is coming in short, labored bursts, his chest tight with anxiety, and he gets a mental image of Eddie, his inhaler rattling between his teeth as he takes a puff to combat his “asthma”. He looks at his watch. 4:37am. He’s been reading for eight hours, lost in the story Bill had weaved. Usually he would be proud of his friend’s writing, proud that he could string words together in such a way that when you read them, everything around you falls away. Right now, however, he hates how much he loves Bill’s writing. He hates that he can picture the scene clearly, hates that he can almost feel that kiss, the scruff on Bill’s lip rubbing against his own. More importantly, he hates that he was blindsided by this. Bill should have warned him, let him know that his most replayed fantasy was going to be written out for the whole world to read. He picks up his phone, unlocks it, pulls up his Messages app, and starts drafting a message to Bill. Three paragraphs in, he deletes it all. Minutes tick by as he stares at his phone. How do you confront your friend for writing a scene where the characters, based on the two of you, do the one thing you’ve been thinking about for decades? How do you do that without confessing just how much you wish that scene was real, ruining everything that you just got back? Is this scene somehow Bill’s way to confess? Could this be his chance?

He pulls up the browser window on his phone again, this time searching for plane tickets to Los Angeles. It’ll be hard seeing Bill in person; they haven’t met one-on-one since he left Derry but this isn’t the kind of thing you handle over the phone. And if somewhere deep in his subconscious he hopes that this means something to Bill, that _he_ means something to Bill, that’s something he’ll never admit to anyone, not even himself.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's 4:37 again, this time in the afternoon, and Mike, on absolutely no sleep, is packing his bags into the rental car from the airport. He debates whether he should call ahead, let Bill know that he's here but he knows that if he calls him, he'll blurt out something that he only wants to say in person. So he scrolls a little bit further in his contacts list and calls the only other person he can think of at this moment: Richie Tozier.

"Mikey!" Richie's voice comes through quite loud and definitely clear through his phone's speaker. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Wincing slightly, Mike begins to answer. "I'm in LA and I was wondering if I could-"

Richie whistles, a sound that reminds Mike of the brief period of time he spent in New York, residents whistling for cabs on every street corner. "You were just here. Why're you back so soon?"

Mike takes a deep breath before speaking, trying to keep his voice from betraying the anxiety he's feeling as reality sets in; he's in _LA_ , mere minutes from seeing Bill again. "Have you read Bill's new book?"

Richie hums, a soft sound that sets Mike a bit more at ease. "Yeah, man, it was great! It was totally based on us. I _told_ him he should have added some kind of sexy scene in there, that'd make for great Hollywood material. Maybe they'd even ignore his bad endings for once!" A few seconds pass before he continues. "Have _you_ read it?"

"I got about three-quarters of the way through and, uh, that's why I'm in LA, actually." Mike winces when he hears the sharp intake of breath on the other side of the phone. He can hear Richie setting his phone down and shouting for Eddie. The two have been inseparable since the group made it out of the sewers and away from Derry and Mike was happy for them, really he was. He just didn't want to talk to the whole group about his situation. "Richie, it's fine. You don't have to get-"

"Mike!" Eddie's voice, equally as loud as Richie's, is coming through the speaker now and Mike groans internally. "It's great to hear from you. Why don't you come over to our place and we can talk about things?"

Groaning out loud now, Mike shakes his head. "I was gonna head over to Bill's, talk to him about this. I want to see if he meant what he wrote, to see if I have a chance."

"Now might not be," Eddie pauses, breathing deeply for a few beats before continuing. "Now might be the best time for that." Before Mike can ask why, Eddie plows forward, headstrong and willful just as he was as a kid. "Just come over to our place and maybe we can get Bill to come over for dinner."

The idea sounds good and it would definitely give Mike some time to mull over what he wants to say. Should he come right out with his feelings, be honest with Bill in the way he never was when they were kids? Should he wait until they talked about _that scene_? Would he even have the guts to bring any of this up or would he fall back into his old habits of hiding how he felt the second he sees Bill's soft blue eyes? Some part of him knows the answer to all of these questions but it stays silent, waiting and watching as Mike tries to find the answer on his own.

"No." The determination in his voice shocks him and he knows it shocks the couple on the other side of the call. "I need to see him now; I've waited 27 years and I'm not waiting a moment longer."

He hangs up, ignoring the shouts of protest from his friends. He knows Bill's address, has been there before, back when Bill and Audra weren't separated, were still together in their townhouse near the beach. _Audra_ , he thinks, chest tightening out of a sense of guilt that he knows shouldn't be there. It's not his fault, not entirely, that they separated. Bill had tried to make it work, tried to ignore the obvious similarities between Audra and Bev. He had tried to accept that his wife, his partner in this life, would never be able to fully understand the pain and trauma that he had gone through both as a kid and as a 40-year-old man. But everyone knew, all of the Losers knew that there was no way the two would be able to stay together, not when Audra watched Bev like a hawk watches its prey whenever they all visited. Not when they first heard the couple arguing about just what had happened during those fateful few days in Derry. And definitely not when Bill refused couples therapy. He said it was because he didn't believe it was what they needed but everyone knew, Bill and Audra included, that the reason he refused was really that he didn't want to be forced to admit that they no longer loved each other, not as they had before. 

Somehow, throughout all of this, Bill had managed to start and finish a book depicting a fictionalized account of their shared trauma. He had discussed the book with them all beforehand but hadn't given too much detail as to the storyline, stating that they would have to read the book to find out more. Was that his way of hiding what he most likely knew was a risky scene? It was one thing to base characters off of your friends and use their already established relationships within the story. It was a whole other thing to-

Mike's thoughts are interrupted by a sharp horn blast; he had started driving at some point and is now sitting at an intersection despite the light having turned green. The drivers behind him growing more and more impatient as he continues to sit there. He moves his car forward, shaking his head to clear it of his thoughts. It was dangerous to get distracted while driving anywhere but especially so in LA, with the ridiculous drivers that make up the bulk of traffic that he now finds himself in. 

Now focused on his drive, Mike finds himself appreciating the scenery that he has seen so recently yet is still so new to him. The bright skies, the grass that’s somehow green despite the frequent droughts that plague the area, the hot air that is so uniquely LA that he feels that nothing from home could ever reach him here. He loves this part of the country, it’s one of his favorite on his list of places he’s visited post-Derry; it’s special, not only because it is home to three of his best friends but because the entire atmosphere of the community is something he finds himself studying. He’s been thinking of going back to school, getting that anthropology degree he’d dreamt of so many times growing up but not yet. He’s still got some traveling to do.

He’s driving through the city to the suburbs, pulling his rental car that smells oddly of cinnamon up to the curb in front of Bill’s home. Mike sits there for a few moments, taking in the wonder that is Bill’s home. The front yard is immaculately kept, not a blade of grass out of place. The American Craftsman home standing tall and proud among homes of a similar style but this one, this home, is unique in the fact that there’s also a touch of the Colonial style that is so popular in Maine. Bill must have had it built special and it’s that thought that helps Mike get out of the car and begin the walk up to the home that he had been in not too long ago, the home that, while he was there, he fantasized about sharing with Bill. Perhaps that fantasy isn’t too far from becoming reality. 

It’s quiet as he walks up the stone path that cuts through the well-manicured lawn. He’s breathing in the fresh air (as fresh as LA air can get) and running over what he’ll say, shaking his head with each option he tosses away. He can’t just come right out and say “I love you.” That would be embarrassing and so incredibly weird. Would he ask to come in? Would Bill just invite him in naturally? Would they take their conversation to Bill’s spacious backyard, where they had their last Losers’ reunion? As he’s thinking about this, he’s getting closer and closer to the front door. One last rushed option flies through his mind and he wipes it away as he wipes his hands on his jeans.

Mike’s there now, in front of the door, and he reaches out to knock but should he use his fist or the beautiful, delicately detailed knocker in the shape of a lion’s head? As he’s debating, the door suddenly opens, Mike’s hand still outstretched, ready to knock. He’s about to smile and make some joke about missing the smog and celebrities when he sees it’s not Bill who answered.

“Audra?” His would-be smile drops as he realizes the implications of her presence here. They’ve reconciled; their separation has ended and they’ve come back together just in time for Mike to witness it firsthand, to feel his heart break so harshly that he swears he can see Audra recoil at the sound. Mike tries to put on a brave face, to hide the torment that he’s going through just at seeing her face. “How are you?”

She smiles at him; she had never had an issue with him or any of the guys. Maybe that should have warned Mike that his hopes would never come true. If Bill’s wife didn’t get nervous around the men in his life like she did the women, then Bill was most likely straight. He couldn’t imagine a world where Bill wasn’t completely honest with the person he loves. Thinking of Bill and love makes his heart ache even more and he has to dig his fingernails into his palm to stop the tears that threaten to pool and slip down his face.

They speak for a few minutes; he’s overly polite and she’s just polite enough. Nothing is really said between them, no reasons why either of them are there. She doesn’t offer to call Bill for him and he doesn’t ask. It’s clear that there is some kind of tension in the air but Mike doesn’t know just who it’s coming from. After a few awkward minutes of this, he gives his goodbye and is about to ask that she tell Bill ‘hi’ for him when he thinks better of it. It’s time to pull away from this ridiculous fantasy he has that Bill cares for him in any way other than a simple friend. He was the outcast within a group of outcasts; he knew that then and he knows it now. The others are all paired up or are close, calling and texting each other constantly. And then there’s him, alone in a group of seven. There’s no amount of traveling, of sightseeing, of escaping Derry that would ever change that.

Mike walks away, his chest aching with a sudden desire to get on the next flight back to Maine. He’s been looking for somewhere to live, preferably somewhere close to his friends but now? Now it seems like the only place he would ever feel comfortable. There’s a familiar pull in his gut as he gets into his car, one that he recognizes from the very few times that he dared to venture outside of Derry’s city limits. He wants to go home.

Pulling away from the curb, Mike drives as far as he can before he breaks down. He’s on the side of the road in some other rich neighborhood and he knows he should move on before someone reports a strange car with an even stranger man inside to the police but he can’t see through his tears, can’t feel his hands well enough to grip the steering wheel. 27 years worth of tears have built up and he lets them out finally, his body heaving and sighing with both relief and despair. He had held himself back from mourning the loss of his friends, of Bill, all that time he was truly alone but now there is no hope that Bill would see him and suddenly realize that Mike was who he should be with. There is no hope that Bill would ever see him as anything more than the man who had called them all back, put their lives at risk, _drugged him_ , and lied to them. Not for the first time in his life, Mike thinks about how all of this could have been prevented if he had just died in that fire with his parents. Sometimes when he wakes up from particularly bad nightmares, he can feel the tongues of the flames licking at him like he was an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. It is in times like these, when his fear and anxiety rear their ugly heads, that he can feel the flames outside the darkness of his bedroom. 

A knock at his window startles Mike out of his thoughts and at first he thinks that he had somehow started driving, just like earlier. But no, there’s someone at the passenger side of his car and he rolls down the window without checking, not caring if it’s the police or someone determined to carjack him. Anything that would make him feel something other than this pain would be a welcome change.

“Mike?” The voice is startling familiar and Mike nearly vomits into his lap as he realizes who it is. _Bill_. “Mike, are you okay?”

He starts laughing then, full-bodied and laden with a multi-faceted thread of emotion that even he himself doesn’t understand. He’s laughing so hard, he can feel the pull of the seatbelt on his shoulder with each breath as he leans forward, head laid on the steering wheel. “Am I okay?”

Bill laughs cautiously, a little awkwardly, and leans in through the window. “Yeah, I g-guess that was a stupid question. W-What are you doing here?”

Mike debates telling Bill even though he knows what the response will be: ‘Oh, Mike, I’m flattered, really I am but…’ He doesn’t think he could survive being shot down, not like this, so he just shrugs and gestures to his face, as if his tears would explain anything. “Things have been rough lately, I guess.”

The sound Bill makes, a sad and sympathetic hum, makes Mike want to start crying again but he resists somehow. Instead, he unlocks the car and gestures for Bill to join him. If he can’t have Bill the way he wants, the way he yearns and craves and burns for, he’ll have him this way: as a friend.

“You wanna t-tell me what’s wrong, M-Mikey?” The nickname sounds beautiful on Bill’s tongue and Mike can’t help but want to taste it, to finally know how sweet Bill tastes as he stutters out his name. But he keeps his hands in his lap and his eyes on the wheel. 

Shrugging again, Mike turns the car back on. “Guess it’s just leftover shit from Derry.” Not quite a lie but not quite the truth either. “Let me drive you home.”

As Bill gets into the car, the first thought in Mike’s mind is how Eddie had tried to warn him. Had he known about Audra? Did everyone else know? Maybe they had a separate groupchat without him, one where they could feel free to be themselves without worrying about Mike, the liar, the man who endangered all of them, the one who tricked them into coming home. 

“Have you p-put any thought into where you’re m-moving to?” Bill asks from the passenger seat as he fiddles with the clasp of his seatbelt. His tone is wary, as if there are verbal eggshells to walk on now that he’s witnessed Mike crying like a heartbroken woman in a ridiculous Hallmark movie. 

Humming, partly to steady his voice and partly to avoid answering for a moment, Mike turns onto the road that will lead them back to Bill’s home, back to Audra. When he does finally answer, he knows it’s not what Bill was expecting. “I think I’m going to stay in Derry.”

Bill turns to face him so fast that Mike is worried about whiplash for a few moments. He doesn’t look but he knows that Bill’s expression must be incredulous, unbelieving. “How-What on e-earth would possess y-you to stay there?”

“There’s nowhere else I can see myself living, nowhere else I can really go.” To Mike, this statement has never been truer than today. Some part of him, the part that still had held out hope that one day Bill would confess that he felt the same way, that part had also hoped that he could move in with Bill, bask in the warmth and sunshine of LA with him by his side. Now that hope is shattered into fragments so tiny that it’s almost as if it never existed. Except it did exist and the memory of it will haunt Mike for years to come. 

“Mikey.” The pity in Bill’s voice makes Mike’s stomach churn and he has to hold back yet another round of bile. “You know that’s not true; you could go anywhere, _live_ anywhere. I mean, you could even-“ Bill cuts himself off there and Mike forces himself to not fill in the blank. He wills himself to think of nothing but the road in front of him. 

“I belong there, Bill; it’s all I’ve known.”

“But it doesn’t have to be!” Bill’s voice is clear, not even a trace of the stutter that reappeared after his memories returned. For the third time that day, Mike is startled, his entire being wanting to curl up and find some hidden compartment inside where he can hide from the world. Quieter this time, as if he can tell that Mike is uncomfortable, he says, “It doesn’t have to be, Mike.”

They drive in silence. Mike can’t find the words to make Bill understand why he can’t leave Derry, why he has to stay; all the words that he had prepared to say to tell Bill why he wanted to leave Derry at last, were made irrelevant the moment that Audra opened the door. Now he feels that urge to return, that pull stronger than anything he’s ever felt before. As they’re driving up the road to Bill’s home, Mike finds himself wishing that he had forgotten everything after they had defeated IT; what was the point of remembering when the one thing he’s wanted his whole life has been torn from him, stomped on and destroyed time and time again? 

“Well,” Mike says as he pulls the car to the curb, unlocking the doors without glancing at Bill. “Here we are!”

But Bill doesn’t get out. He’s still sitting there, his hands in his lap, and Mike can feel his gaze. It’s stifling, having those bright blue eyes on him, and he can’t bring himself to look over. Bill’s seen through him; he probably knows exactly why Mike showed up on his doorstep randomly after he had just visited. He probably knows why he had broken down and cried in the car after seeing Audra. He probably knows that Mike has been head over heels for him since middle school. Maybe he’s thinking of how to let him down gently; god, Mike hopes that’s isn’t it because he doesn’t think he could handle it, not so soon after having his hopes risen and then dashed down so suddenly.

The longer that Bill stays in the car, the longer the two of them stay silent, the heavier the tension grows. Mike’s hands haven’t left the steering wheel since he unlocked the car; he knows that if he lets go, he’ll reach out for Bill, for some kind of physical contact that would reassure him that he hasn’t lost him, not yet. Despite this, he loosens his grip and turns to say something; what it is, he doesn’t know. Before he can get the unknown words out, Bill lets out a heavy sigh.

“It’s the book, isn’t it?” 

There’s something in Bill’s voice that sounds… pained? It ignites in Mike a flicker of hope yet again and he hates how easy it is for Bill to get his heart racing. He thinks that maybe he’ll tell him the truth but then he remembers Audra and how happy she looked and he decides against it. “The book? What are you talking about?”

Mike can see the look on Bill’s face when his words register; it shifts from surprise to confusion to what might be relief. “You haven’t read it yet?”

A non-committal noise is the only answer Mike gives him at first. He doesn’t want to admit that this book is the best thing that Bill’s ever written, that the scene with the characters that are very clearly based on them has been playing over and over in his mind since he read it last night. He doesn’t want to admit that he had fantasized about that scene happening in real life ever since the day they defeated IT. So instead, he shrugs and says, “I’m only about a hundred pages in. Is there something I would get upset over?”

“Oh,” Bill huffs out. He sounds a bit sad now and Mike is more confused than ever. “Well, when you g-g-get near the end, don’t fr-freak out, okay? It’s just, uh, w-where the story took me?”

And there it is, the final stab that effectively kills all hope Mike ever had or could ever have again that Bill felt the same way. Of course he didn’t mean what he wrote; he had just gone where the story took him, as all good writers do. A chuckle escapes from him and Mike covers it up with a cough. “Yeah, yeah, ‘course, Big Bill.”

A few more moments of silence and then _click_. Bill’s unbuckled and the car door is open. They’re parting ways, not for the first time but something inside Mike says that it might be the last, at least for a while. He doesn’t look over as Bill exits the car, doesn’t look over as Bill lingers on the sidewalk, the door to the rental still open. Most importantly, Mike doesn’t look over as Bill tells him goodbye.

“Love you, Mikey.” The words are spoken softly but they feel like wasp stings against his skin. He can almost feel his skin blister and bubble with the knowledge that those words don’t carry the weight he wishes they did. He wants to scrub himself clean, wash and wash and wash those words off of him until his skin is raw from a controlled hurt instead of this sudden and unpreventable torture. 

Instead he simply replies, “Love you too, Bill.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He’s in Eddie and Richie’s home now and Mike feels like he’s been run over by a dump truck. He hasn’t told the two what happened, just that _something_ happened and he needs to be more drunk and less conscious to get through it. So Eddie pulled out a couple bottles of cheap wine that get the job done quickly and now the three of them are sitting in front of the TV watching The Great British Bake-Off, yelling at the bakers who should know better than to “put the icing on right after taking it out of the oven! What are you, an amateur? My dead mother could bake better than you!”

This display of camaraderie lulls Mike into a sense of safety; he feels content here, despite the tiny part of his mind that tells him _go back to Derry, they don’t want you here, you’re disrupting their lives, why would they want_ you _here when you’re the one that cost Eddie his arm?_ At any other time, Mike would believe the voice, would make some excuse and pack up, ready to go back to Derry. But after what happened today, he feels he can be a little selfish. 

“I didn’t tell him.” Mike breaks the silence that came when the next episode was queueing up. “Audra was there.”

Richie hits pause and turns to look at him, his face twisted into an exasperated expression he doesn’t try to hide. “Of course she was, dude. They were finalizing their divorce today.”

A choked sound comes from somewhere deep in Mike’s chest. _Finalizing their divorce?_ “Y-You mean…”

It’s Eddie’s turn to hit him with an exasperated expression. The way the two of them are looking at him makes Mike feel like he just disappointed his grandparents. It’s… refreshing. “Dude, that’s why I told you to not go over there. Bill was already planning on coming here to celebrate and we were gonna surprise him with you once you called but now-”

There’s a buzz and then the Ghostbusters’ theme song starts playing, prompting Richie to quickly grab his phone. “It’s Bill,” he announces, a nervous tinge to his voice. “I’ll be right back.”

Mike sits there in stunned silence as he tries to wrap his head around the knowledge that Audra and Bill aren’t back together, that Bill is single now, that maybe, just maybe, he still has a chance. But then he remembers what Bill said and that hope disappears yet again. ‘It’s just, uh, w-where the story took me.’ He should have listened to Eddie and Richie, he should have just gone right to their house where they could have told him what was going on and he would have had his friends next to him when he found out that Bill would never actually feel that way about him. He should have…

He’s crying into Eddie’s shoulder now, the emotions and the wine finally catching up with each other as they work hard to complete some disturbing race whose finish line is Mike back in Derry, spending the next few decades of his life the same way he spent last three: pining over a man he could never have.

“Hey, hey,” Eddie is shushing him now, the stump of his right arm wrapping around Mike’s shoulders as much as it can. “Talk to me, Mike, tell me what’s going on.”

So Mike does. He tells him about seeing Audra open the door, he tells him about driving away as far as he could before the tears began flowing so heavily that he nearly got into an accident and had to pull over, he tells him about running into Bill and everything they said to each other. Spurred on by the alcohol in his system, he even tells Eddie about the voice in his head telling him he doesn’t deserve his friends, that they’re better off without him, that it’s his fault that Eddie nearly died and lost an arm. He tells him all of this while Richie is on the phone, finishing up just as he comes back.

“Mike, none of us think of it like that,” Eddie murmurs into Mike’s hair as he holds him, rubbing his arm soothingly as Richie rejoins them on the couch. “We all made the same promise as kids. We’re the ones who should be apologizing to _you_. You stayed there for so long, dealt with all of that shit for so long by yourself.”

“None of us blame you for any of this; you did what you had to and you know what?” Richie leans in, wrapping himself around Eddie and Mike protectively, holding them close to his chest as if he wanted to shield them from the world. “You saved so many lives because of it. All the future generations that IT would have hurt, all the kids IT would have killed, saved because of you.”

Mike blinks at that. He has never thought of his actions as those that could save lives. Of course he was thinking of that when he called the others back, when he prepared each part of the plan. He just never really thought of it that way after everything had settled down. All he could think about was how much hurt he had caused. Stan had nearly died, only saved by Patty’s great timing. Eddie had lost an arm saving Richie from the Deadlights, which he was only in because Mike had decided to face IT out of some suicidal guilt for every wrong thing he had done regarding his friends. But now that Eddie’s pointed it out, Mike thinks of all the children who can now grow up without fear, of all the children who will have children who may not have had that chance had IT been allowed to continue feeding off the town of Derry. He thinks of Bev and Ben, of Stan and Patty, who are trying to conceive and who may now be able to. He thinks of Richie and Eddie, pulled back together by Mike’s phone call, now able to be themselves, be together, because time has changed not only their bodies but society as a whole. He thinks of Bill and, while his heart still aches, he smiles because now Bill is no longer haunted by the thought that he was responsible for his brother’s death, he is no longer haunted by the thought that he caused all of this because of his insistence that they go down into the sewers to look for Georgie. Despite all of the pain that Mike has gone through over the past 27 years, he would go through it again and again if it meant that Bill was released from that, if it meant that Bill could be happy.

He tries to word all of this, tries to tell Richie and Eddie just how much their few words mean to him but he can’t. All he can do is hold them close and enjoy the love he can feel radiating from the two men holding him as he cries. He loves these two, loves every member of the Losers Club, and although he still has that small voice in the back of his mind, he thinks that he can finally accept that they love him too. 

“So, uh, not to break up this wonderful group hug but Bill called and…” Richie trails off and Mike’s heart starts racing again, his breath coming in short spurts and he is suddenly reminded of Eddie’s “asthma”. “He’s coming over.”

“No!” Mike stands up suddenly, pushing Richie and Eddie off of him so he can pace around the living room, hands running through his hair over and over again as he tries to calm down. “No, I can’t see him, _please_.”

Eddie stands up and grabs Mike by the hand, stilling him. “I feel like you two got some wires crossed; maybe talking it out would help?”

Wires crossed. How could their wires have gotten crossed when there weren’t wires to cross in the first place? Bill had written something and Mike had taken it the wrong way, flown all the way out to LA to confess his love, found out that it was just where the story had taken him, and had his heart crushed; it’s as simple as that. “How can I face him again? I didn’t even tell him why I just randomly showed up to his house. I _lied_ to him, _again_ , Eddie!”

Eddie’s hand just grips Mike’s tighter as he tugs him over to the couch, pushing him down gently. “You’re going to face him because it’s what you need to do, Mike. You know Bill; he would never do anything to hurt you. If he doesn’t feel the same, and I highly fucking doubt that you’re right about that, he’ll still be your friend.”

Mike sighs and hangs his head, arms resting on his legs. He feels defeated; he doesn’t want to be here any longer but he knows he has to stay. He’s too intoxicated to drive and where would he go? He can’t afford to book another last-minute flight; being a librarian isn’t the highest paying job, especially in a town like Derry, and he’s been traveling so much in the past year that he’s almost completely run through his savings. He’ll stay and deal with this, as much as it scares him. If he can accept that his friends love him, he needs to learn to accept that Bill doesn’t, not in the way that he wants him to.

Richie and Eddie talk around him, making dinner plans, as he sits on the couch trying to figure out just what he’s going to say when Bill eventually arrives. Does he even know that he’s here? Or is he walking in blind? Part of him hopes that they warned him while another part hopes that they didn’t. He hopes that Bill will have to answer him truthfully, honestly, on the spot without a chance to think of a lie. Not that he thinks Bill would lie to him. No. Bill is too good to do that. He’s too good for Mike.

Sitting on this couch, the odd fabric feeling like sandpaper against his thighs, his shorts riding up his legs and exposing the tender skin, Mike feels as if he is suffocating. He needs to get this out, needs to somehow vocalize what he’s feeling but if he tells Eddie any more he’s worried that his friend will try to convince him to get therapy. He’s thought about it but he doesn’t feel that he’s worth it. So instead of being a responsible adult and looking into getting therapy, he pulls up his notes app and starts typing.

_It feels like I’m drowning with each word I hear from you. I want to hold you close, to drink in every ounce of attention that you give me, but I can’t because the closer you get, the more pain I put myself through. Loving you is like a disease and maybe there’s a cure, maybe there’s not but at this point I don’t think I even care anymore. All I want is to see you happy, no matter where you are or who you’re with. Fuck, you could tell me that the one thing that would make you happy is for me to be out of your life and I would do it. I would do it, Bill; I’d do anything just to keep on seeing your smile, even from afar. I want to give you everything I have, everything I ever had, everything I ever will have, if you’ll take it. But I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve to make you happy, I don’t deserve to see you happy because I know that you still have nightmares, I know that you always will have nightmares and that’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault_

The doorbell rings and everyone goes quiet, Richie and Eddie looking at each other for a few moments before Richie shrugs and walks over to the front door. Eddie’s looking at Mike where he sits, his phone clutched in his hand, and the sympathy is clear on his face. Bill is here and it’s time for Mike to get this over with.

A few minutes later and they’re all seated around the dinner table, Richie and Eddie struggling to keep a conversation going as the tension between Mike and Bill grows stronger and stronger. Mike refuses to look at Bill for longer than a moment; their conversation from earlier keeps swimming in his head, floating and floating until his thoughts eventually begin to sink deeper and deeper into the fear that he’s finally lost Bill. He’s pushing the food around on his plate, suddenly disinterested in the chickpea curry that sits before him, when Richie speaks.

“So Mikey, what’re your plans after your ‘Great American Road Trip’ is done?” Richie’s tone is light and airy but even Mike can tell that it’s forced. He sees Bill tense up across the table and he gets ready for another round of the new game ‘Disappoint My Friends!’

He tells them and it’s almost exactly the way he told Bill; they tell him that he doesn’t have to do that, that he can go anywhere he wants. He tells them that there’s nowhere else he can really see himself being. All he’s ever known is Derry. What he doesn’t say is that he believes all he deserves is Derry. 

Bill gets up suddenly then, his face contorted into a look that’s somewhere between irate and defeated. “If you’re so hellbent on staying there, _fine_ . _Go_ . Stay in a town filled with people who never appreciated you, never appreciated how _good_ you are, how _kind_ you are.” He storms toward the door, grabbing his keys from the counter as he passes. “They never have and you _know_ they never will.”

At first, no one moves to stop him. It isn’t until the front door is opened and Bill is halfway out that Mike quickly stands up, angrier than he’s been since IT returned. He feels it bubbling inside; his body, now a volcano, set to erupt, to spew rage and resentment and hurt onto his unsuspecting friends by his side.

“Appreciated me? How the hell do _you_ know if they did or not?” He moves quickly to the door, grabbing it before it can shut. Bill is halfway down the walk to his car so Mike has to yell after him. “You sure didn’t; none of you did!”

That stops Bill in his tracks. He turns around to glare at him, his fists clenched so tight that even at this distance, Mike can see his knuckles turn white with the strain. He continues on, knowing that if he doesn’t get this out now, he might never get it out.

“You left me there, let me shoulder all of the responsibility! Even after we knew, after we saw that Beverly forgot when she left, _none_ of you thought to stay. I was _alone_ for over twenty years, Bill.” He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes, steeling himself for what he’s about to say. All these years he’s had these thoughts pent up but pushed them down, tried to ignore them but he can’t do it any longer. “So yes, that town doesn’t appreciate me, it never has. But you know what, Bill? It never _abandoned_ me.”

When he opens his eyes again, he sees that Bill is standing there, just a few feet from him, looking as if he’s been slapped. Mike can feel a presence behind him and he almost flinches, despite knowing that it must be Richie and Eddie, but he’s too tired. The two are uncharacteristically quiet and that might be the most unsettling thing in this whole situation. 

Seconds pass like hours, time slowed by the weight of his words and the pain clear on Bill’s face. All Mike can hear is the hum of passing cars on the street behind Bill. The heat of the California air is stifling but then he feels a drop of water trickle down his cheek. Rain? No, not rain. Another tear cuts a smooth path down his cheek and then the floodgates are open, the murky waters he had dammed up behind a facade of strength and assuredness quickly making their way to the surface and out into the world. 

He stands there, sobbing, too withdrawn to notice the warm arms enveloping him from behind. He doesn’t notice the soft hand caressing his cheek before it, too, wraps itself around him in a hug. He is drained and yet he continues to cry. He lets himself be led back into the house and pushed gently onto the sofa, someone’s body now a blanket curling around him as they hold him to their chest, whispering soft assurances into his hair. 

“It’s okay, Mikey,” Bill murmurs, his lips brushing against Mike’s close-cropped hair. “Just let it all out.”

“I missed you all so much,” Mike croaks out, his throat sore and dry from crying. “I kept hoping you would come back and no one did.”

He feels the body around him shudder as Bill starts to cry as well, the little sobs stuttering out of his mouth just as his words tend to. Slowly, Mike slips an arm around Bill’s waist and hugs him. 

Holding each other, they sit there on the couch, tears streaming down their faces, until they can’t cry anymore. However long has passed, neither knows; all they know is that Richie and Eddie must have left the room at some point because when they look up, the two are nowhere to be seen. Thankful for the space, Mike curls into Bill’s arms and buries his face in his shoulder, soaking it with the wet streaks left on his face by his tears.

“Mikey,” Bill whispers, his hand coming up to cup the back of Mike’s head gently, tenderly, almost as if he were scared to break him. “Mikey, honey, look at me.”

Mike pulls back, wincing at the way he loves how his name sounds on Bill’s lips, the way he loves the pet name and the soft touches and everything that he might never get to have again once he tells Bill the truth. Because of course he’s going to tell Bill the truth; he deserves it. So Mike looks at him, tears drying on his cheeks.

“Mikey,” Bill starts, his tone hesitant. “Tell me why you really came to L.A.”

It’s time. This is it. He has to tell the truth now; he can’t keep dodging it. He can’t think of any more lies so the truth is all he has left. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse from crying but he doesn’t mind. He feels it’s an accurate reflection on how he feels inside; hoarse and rough, like a pumice stone has been scraped across his soul.

“I read the book. Not, uh, not all of it but…”

It’s Bill who winces this time and Mike feels his guilt settle onto his shoulders, heavy and sickening. He feels an urge to reach out, he _wants_ to reach out, but stills himself before he can make things worse.

Bill speaks then, his stutter more present than ever. “I-I-I, s-shit, I’m sor-sorry, I’m sorry.”

Mike reaches out then; his hands smooth through Bill’s hair, lingering longer than is probably appropriate for friends but he doesn’t care, not anymore. Neither of them speak as he holds him, the silence settling around them like a blanket. It’s comfortable, in a way; it feels like they’re far away from this house, far away from themselves. It feels like they’re somewhere neither of them have been before but they’re there together, which brings a sense of comfort and familiarity to all of this. And maybe it won’t disappear once Bill knows the truth, maybe it will but to experience this, just for a little bit? Mike wouldn’t trade that for the world.

“Bill, I love you.”

The confession rings out in the silence, the words now out there for Bill to choose what to do with them. At first, Bill is just sitting there, his face still set in the expression he held moments before Mike spoke. And then slowly, as if he hadn’t truly heard him until now, Bill reacts. His eyes widen, his lips part with a soft gasp, his hands go slack where they were holding onto Mike and then, softly, he says:

“No.”

_No?_ Mike lets out a choked laugh, his heart straining against his chest as it tries to escape, to flee as far as it can away from this couch. Bill doesn’t move but he can tell that his laugh has unsettled him. He doesn’t care, _can’t_ care about that right now. All he wants to focus on is that one word, the only word Bill could think to say in response to a friend confessing their love for him. _No._

“Mikey, I-”

Mike goes to cut him off with a wave of a shaky hand but Bill catches his hand, pulls it close to his chest, resting it there and then- _thump, th-thump, thump, th-thump_. Mike can feel Bill’s heartbeat, it’s pace wild and erratic. 

“Mikey, I kn-know you love me but it’s not- it’s not how I want- god, it’s not how I w-want you to.” 

His words come out rushed and frantic, almost matching the rhythm of his heart that Mike can still feel beating underneath his palm. He wants to hold it, wants to hold Bill but he can’t move. All he can do is wait, hope that the next words Bill says won’t send him back to Derry alone. 

“I’m in love with you, Mikey.” In a rare bout of confidence, Bill doesn’t stutter as he tells Mike, “I’m in love with you and that’s why I wrote that scene and why my heart is racing and why I’m divorcing Audra so quickly and-” 

Before Bill can continue, Mike surges forward to kiss him. Their teeth clank as their lips meet and Mike can taste the sharp iron taste of blood but he doesn’t care. He gets as close as he can to Bill, their limbs entwined until their impossible to sort out, and he kisses him. It’s terrible, their first kiss, but with the way Bill was speaking, Mike harbors a confident guess that they’ll have many more chances to get better.

As they finally separate, both out of breath, Mike has to fight the need to dive back in, to kiss Bill again and again until his lips go numb and then kiss him some more. But Bill is pulling away, his hands leaving where they rest on Mike, and his whole body is shaking. It is then that Mike realizes he never said it back, never told him and so he does. He tells him by taking Bill’s hands and pulling them against his chest so he can feel the shaky rhythm of his heart. He tells him by cupping his cheek and rubbing his thumb across Bill’s lips gently, tenderly, as if they are made of precious crystal. He tells him by leaning forward and capturing those crystal lips in a softer kiss than their first, holding there a brief moment as he murmurs out his true feelings, ones he thought were plain to see, ones he thought he had failed in hiding. 

“I’m in love with you, Bill.”

Mike can feel the tears that are streaming down Bill’s face as he kisses him again and again; he can taste them on Bill’s lips, on his tongue. They part again, Mike feeling all too much at once. When Bill moves to speak, Mike places his thumb against his lips, pressing softly but with just enough pressure that Bill knows to stay quiet. He wants to savor this moment and the quiet, soft breaths they share. They need to talk and they will. Later. Right now, Mike isn’t sure he could handle hearing any sound other than their twin heartbeats and the tiny gasps Bill lets out in between kisses. Even the whisper of a conversation would feel deafening when all he wants to hear is Bill’s confession that still rings in his ears. So, with a smile on his lips, Mike kisses Bill again, content in the knowledge that they’ll figure things out later. What’s important are the three words Bill has already said but that Mike can taste on his lips:

I love you.

  
  



End file.
